Paintings at Holy Cross in Worcester promote peace

Conflict cities are transformed in gold-embossed paintings at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester.

Chris Bergeron

Promoting peace through her art, Ellen Frank spent a decade creating monumental paintings of nine great cities damaged by modern conflict as part of a plea for global spiritual renewal.

The artist from East Hampton, N.Y., guides viewers through the streets and souls of cities like Sarajevo and New York, Hiroshima and Jerusalem which have been traumatized by war and extremism during the last century.

Frank's nine luminous paintings are displayed in "Cities of Peace," an exhibit that fuses art and activism at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Other cities represented in the paintings are Baghdad, Kabul, Monrovia, Beijing and Lhasa.

Subtitled "A Suite of Monumental Gold-Illuminated Paintings from the Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation," the exhibit will be on view in the college's Cantor Art Gallery through Dec. 16.

Working with interns from around the world, Frank used 22 karat gold leaf, palladium, egg tempera, bronze powder and other materials on Belgian linen to create multilayered 8-by-6-foot images that resemble enormously enlarged illustrated manuscripts.

Her paintings infuse each city with its signature cultural and spiritual flavor.

Like the city it portrays, each painting teems with the landmarks, culture, architecture and, most vividly, the spiritual lives of its people.

When depicting Jerusalem, Frank juxtaposes an Islamic floral pattern with the Star of David. Her painting of Monrovia, Liberia, includes an image of the night sky exactly as it appeared when the country celebrated its independence in 1847.

Frank envisions each city through the twin lens of cartography and popular history.

Her 2005 painting, "Lhasa: 10 Directions," combines broadly realistic images with arcane symbols to depict the Chinese-occupied capital of the former nation of Tibet as a font of compassion and spirituality.

Two gold-leaf pillars inspired by columns of an ancient Buddhist temple frame the painting's vertical borders. The top and bottom borders comprise rows of hands shaping sacred Buddhist gestures considered, according to wall text, "more powerful than the spoken word."

An image of the Potala Palace, once the home of the Dalai Lama, is surrounded by an ancient path that pilgrims walk to acquire merit in their next incarnation.

Frank said her "suite of paintings" began after a 1999 trip to Israel during which she'd sensed "extraordinary tension" resulting from political and religious conflicts. After returning home, she spent a year making "Jerusalem: A Painting Toward Peace" to create "a cityscape of the mind" where harmony and understanding were possible.

Since then Frank established the nonprofit Illumination Arts Foundation, which is "dedicated to using the transformative power and beauty of art to promote global peace and understanding."

Gallery Director Roger Hankins said the large paintings can be enjoyed individually but can also be considered elements of a larger cohesive "suite," the word Frank uses to suggest a musical composition of different movements.

"Each piece exists on its own. It's hard to pull the separate paintings apart," he said. "But the concept overarches the individual paintings. It's not just about the paintings. It's about the ideals represented by the paintings."

Frank employs different techniques to evoke the look and feel of cities in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.

By incorporating each city's artistic traditions into her images, she suggests its unique ambience in innovative ways.

For example, in "Baghdad: City of Peace, Truly" she evokes the city's history as the cradle of civilization by depicting a creation myth in ancient cuneiform writing. In "Hiroshima: Winter Bloom," plum blossoms, which symbolize hope and endurance, cascade across a U.S. aerial reconnaissance photo used to plan the 1945 nuclear attack.

In "Kabul: I Love Her (for knowledge and love both come from her dust)," she uses gold leaf to depict the words of a poem praising the city winding across the painting.

Looking at these paintings is like visiting the Big Apple or Kabul for the first time.

Viewers can use the wall text beside each image as a sort of Fodor's guidebook to find a few main thoroughfares or "must-see" landmarks.

If they're a little daring, they can surrender to the unfamiliar but thrilling beauty of new images, languages and faiths.

You don't need frequent flyer miles for this mesmerizing journey around the world.

THE ESSENTIALS:

The Cantor Gallery is located on the first floor of O'Kane Hall at the College of the Holy Cross, 1 College St., Worcester.

The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. It will be closed Nov. 25-29 for Thanksgiving break.

Admission is free.

On Thursday, Nov. 12, a discussion will be held on the Cities of Peace Project from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Seelos Theatre, Kimball Hall, at Holy Cross College. It will feature artist Ellen Frank and Abigail E. Disney, president of the Daphne Foundation.

For information about the exhibit, call 508-793-3356 or visit www.holycross.edu/cantorartgallery.

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